Sunday A&E: Behind the Scene

Jan. 24, 2013

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Now here's a 'Fanny' story ...

Maybe you can name the three famous architects who designed the Des Moines Art Center: Eliel Saarinen, I.M. Pei and Richard Meier. But did you know the museum first opened downtown at 6101/2 Walnut St.? Or that its first purchase was a 1920 painting called “Aunt Fanny”?

Get the inside scoop during curator Amy Worthen’s lecture on Art Center history at 6:30 p.m. Thursday in the museum’s Levitt Auditorium. Free, but reservations are required. www.desmoinesartcenter.org.

Playhouse circle is complete

When Des Moines Community Playhouse director John Viars saw “Completeness” in New York, an actor named Karl Miller caught his eye.

“He was really good, just wonderful,” Viars said.

It wasn’t until later that Viars discovered the actor was once a Playhouse kid, who participated in the theater’s education programs back “when he was a little rugrat.” One of his rugrat classmates was Viars’ daughter, Kristina Valada-Viars, who stars in a different production of “Completeness” opening next month in Chicago.

The Playhouse’s own version opens Friday (see the Pick 6).

Grammys cast glow on Symphony

The Des Moines Symphony cellist George Work was a soloist on last year’s album of music by Kurt Weill, Jacques Ibert and Alban Berg (“Weill-Ibert-Berg”), whose producer, Dan Merceruio, has been nominated for a producer of the year (classical) Grammy.

One of the other nominees, Blanton Alspaugh, produced the DVD of the Des Moines Symphony’s “Symphony in Sculpture” with video footage of the Pappajohn Sculpture Park.

They’ll find out Feb. 10 if either wins.

Read arts reporter Michael Morain’s blog at DesMoinesRegister.com/morain, and see all arts and theater coverage at DesMoinesRegister.com/OnStageIowa.